


Not If It's You

by andrastesgrace (RoxieFlash), gallifreyslostson



Series: Family Assembled [12]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-05
Updated: 2015-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-05 00:34:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5354210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoxieFlash/pseuds/andrastesgrace, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyslostson/pseuds/gallifreyslostson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Natasha left, and one time Clint tried to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not If It's You

It wasn’t until years later that Nat told him the reason she left the first time.  It was so small, he hadn’t even noticed; they’d been watching a movie at her place, something they’d done a dozen times since Budapest, and he’d slid an arm around her shoulders.

That was it.  Just an arm around her shoulders.  But it was too much like...a thing.

The next day she was gone.

He didn’t know why she left, or if she was coming back.  She was still with SHIELD, still taking assignments...just not with him.

Which was fine.  More than fine.  She didn’t owe him anything, no matter what she said about red in her ledger or whatever.  They were just...having fun.  It had been nice to have someone to hang out with, sure, along with other...extra-curriculars, but it hadn’t really been a thing.

Bobbi had still asked when she blew into town like a baton twirling hurricane.  She said he seemed “moody”.  He asked when she’d last known him not to be.

They both knew the answer to that.

Still, it was nice, with Bobbi.  It was easy.  She’d known him long enough to know all his ragged corners, all his damage, and knew enough not to let it hurt her.  That’s why she’d left.

_I’ll always be there for you Clint, whatever you need.  I just can’t be **here** for you anymore._

So it was easy to follow their usual routine; a few beers, a few laughs, and then falling into bed together.

What wasn’t easy was how much he still missed Nat later.  It was annoying, this niggling feeling of loss, when he hadn’t really had anything to begin with.  It was even more annoying how seeing her in the auditorium for a location meeting made his breath seem to stop in his chest.

_No ties, Barton.  Those are the rules.  Watch yourself.  You’re better off just pretending she’s still gone._

Except when he glanced at her, totally by accident in an effort to stay awake, she was gesturing at him.  It was only the impossibility of it that kept him from realizing immediately that she was signing.

_I’m about to stab the guy next to me just to break the monotony._

He shouldn’t respond.  He really, really shouldn’t.  But she was so, SO right about this stupid fucking meeting.

_I don’t think that would help your reputation._

_Maybe I could just stab myself.  Just a little._

_Messy.  And you’d ruin that shirt.  You could streak.  That would be distracting._

_I don’t know.  I’m not sure my boobs really qualify as distraction material._

_I’ve seen them.  They qualify._

“Are we keeping you two from something?”

They both looked at Fury, only then realizing he’d stopped talking.  They both slumped down in their seats, muttering “no sir”, and grinned at each other when the drone started up again.

He saw her boobs again later in a storage closet, along with a lot of other parts.  They all qualified.

And he was so fucked.

***

It was easy most of the time to ignore it, the thing with Barton.  It was just fun.  Until he did something that broke the rules, offered up some proof that he was more involved than he should be, and then she’d take off to remind them both who they were.

They worked better alone.

He was less broken than he thought he was, and she was more shattered than he realized.  That was the problem.  He still wanted to care, and she was so far past someone to be cared for.  Sooner or later, he’d realize it too.

But apparently, today wasn’t that day.  She’d been fine until she heard his voice, talking to another agent, hearing how incredulous the other voice was that he’d called Nat his partner, reminding him how he’d never kept a partner, how he worked better alone.

“Yeah, well.  Then I met Nat.”

It wasn’t really the words, although that was a problem.  He shouldn’t rely on her.  She couldn’t even trust herself most of the time, with the voices sometimes in the back of her head telling her how she was supposed to be, _what_ she was supposed to be.  But she couldn’t deny they worked well together, shockingly so, so she couldn’t really blame him for that.  But more than that was the tone, the way his voice got a little softer, the way his voice practically cradled her name.

The way it made her feel warm in a way she’d never deserve.

So of course she took the first assignment that would get her the hell out of dodge, and left Barton out of the loop.  She’d be fine and he’d remember who they were.

Except she wasn’t fine.  She’d failed, badly, ending up back at headquarters in the hospital wing, beaten and broken and bruised.  Nevermind the wounded pride when she got lectured about having backup.

Reckless.  Careless.  Unstable.  Unreliable.

Dunno what Barton saw in you.

Dunno why he fought so hard to keep you here.

_Neither do I, but he’s sure to regret it by now._

When she finally saw him in the halls again, his mouth became a thin line on sight.  He’d taken her arm and practically dragged her to his office, a perk that had come with the short-lived SO position, then spun her around to look at her, his eyes bright with fury.

He bitched about her leaving, about her cutting him out, asking how he was supposed to trust her when she couldn’t even try to trust him.  About getting herself half dead because she was too maligned to understand that she wasn’t a freelancer anymore and no one was controlling her just because she wasn’t alone.  About letting him go to bat for her for the last two years and still pulling stunts like this that made them both look like morons.

Which was fine, and no less than she deserved.  But then he let out a growl and buried his hand in her hair, hauling her to him and crashing his mouth down on hers with bruising force.  And god help her she kissed him back, her hands clutching at his shirt, because she was stupid and broken and had no problem proving that over and over, but in that second, she wanted to pretend she was someone he cared about, that she was worth caring about.  Then she was bent over his desk while he took out his anger in a totally different way, slamming into her and touching her and covering her mouth so no one would hear her scream when she came, biting her shoulder to keep his own shout quiet.

She was still breathing hard, still aware of him inside her, when he bent over with his lips against her ear.

“You want this to be it, then fine.  But I can only watch your six if you let me, Tasha.”

***

He knew the assignment would be a mistake when he found out about it.  And for once, he was totally, completely, undeniably correct.  And he really, really wished he wasn’t.

He’d figured out the pattern now, the way she always took off if it seemed too much like they were more than work partners and occasional bed-fellows, too much like they were together.  The problem was they weren’t together, he knew they weren’t, but everything she did gave him reasons to wish they were a little less fucked up and actually stood a chance at anything.  That, and he had no way of cataloguing what would set her off.  It could be an arm around her shoulders, or a shared smile, or a comment from someone else.  It could be nothing at all, just the length of time from the last time she’d bolted.

Five years since Budapest, and he’d lost track of the times she’d left.  He wasn’t sure when it went from a mild annoyance to something that made him angry, the way she fucked around with him and sometimes made him believe he was worth a damn, only to leave again.  When he’d started trying to hate her when she was gone, when he’d realized he couldn’t no matter what he did.

Five years of dealing with her insanity, he knew having to pose as a couple would be playing with fire.  He could even almost understand it this time, because of how easy it was, how much they didn’t have to act to be believed.  It was just a matter of not fighting the impulse to touch her, to let himself laugh with her, to let others see it.  And it was easy for her too, he could tell.

And like clockwork, the morning after they got back, she was gone.  No answer on her cell, no missed calls on his.

He could understand it.  But understanding it didn’t stop him from throwing a bottle at the wall when he realized it.

It was stupid, letting her get to him like this over and over again.  It was just sex between coworkers, purely physical, couldn’t even rate at an office fling.  She wanted to screw around, fine, let her.  He was done.  Finished.  Finito.  Natasha Romanoff could go lose herself in a fucking gutter.  Even if she did come back again, which seemed less likely each time, he was done drowning himself for her, letting himself pretend he was a person, someone who could care and be cared for.

Because it wasn’t physical.  Because it was never the sex he missed.  It was all those stupid in between moments that never should have happened, the signing at each other during meetings (where had she even picked that up??  and _why_???), the nights on the couch when she rooted for anyone but New York just to irritate him, watching her body move through some routine she’d worked out on her own, half some sort of martial arts, half ballet, with so much control and grace it left him in awe.

The way she could still smile.  The way she could still make him smile.

But it was stupid, all of it, letting all those moments build up.  He was no good at attachments, because they always left or he got them dead, and she only proved it, time and again, every time she rabbited.

Screw it.

But Bobbi was in town.  At least he could work out some of his frustrations in bed with her, get Nat and all her little moments out of his system.  Except when he kissed Bobbi, even knowing what it was, knowing it’d mean nothing tomorrow but two friends getting reaquainted...he couldn’t stop thinking about Nat.

He broke away from Bobbi with a groan, making a mental tally of any women he’d managed to get to know lately that fell under the heading of Not Nat, and realized just how completely fucked he really was.

He waited for a comment about how karma was a bitch, or at least a snarky comment about what Nat had that Bobbi didn’t.  But neither came, because it was Bobbi.  She just asked about Nat, who she was, how they met, what they were.  And somehow, by some twisted fucking logic, Bobbi decided Nat was good for him and told him not to fuck it up.

“I can’t.  It’s already fucked up.  It’s always _been_ fucked up.  Because I’m fucked up, so everything is just...destined to be poison.”

“You think Nat is poison?”

“No.  But I think _she_ thinks she is, and if she actually stuck around, I could still probably find a way to fuck it up and ruin her.”

“So you’re glad she’s gone.”

“No.  I hate it.  Every fucking time.  But that’s what it is.  We’re not together, and it’s better to remember that sometimes.”

“But you still can’t--”

“Apparently not.  Because I know she’s not mine, and probably never will be...but I screwed up.  Because even when she’s not here...I think I might be hers.”

***

She always wondered why he still wore his hearing aids at home.  She could understand it on missions, and even at her place, but surely at home he could take them out.  They had to get uncomfortable, especially when he was trying to sleep.  So why not remove them.

He told her he did.  But only when he was alone.  He didn’t like not being able to understand people, communicate with them.

She pointed out that she could sign, and anyway, it’s not like they’d communicate much when they were asleep anyway.  And then she took them off of him.

His hands tightened on her hips anxiously as she took each device off, but he didn’t stop her.  Just stared at her with a strange expression.  She set them down in easy reach when she was done, then lifted her hands to sign for him.

_Isn’t that better?_

His adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and he nodded.  He leaned in, hovering over her lips for a second, then breathed out her name, his version of her name anyway, before kissing her.

It was different when he took her to bed, in ways that shouldn’t be affected by an inability to hear.  It was slower, with more kisses and lingering touches, lacking the rough insistence that usually came with sex.  It was more sensual and, if she had to pick a word, tender.

Tender would also describe his expression afterwards, lying face to face as he brushed her hair from her eyes.  From his own silent world, he looked at her like something precious, rare, something he--

Oh no.

He fell asleep faster than he usually did.  Maybe because he was more comfortable.  Maybe because it was quiet.  In either case, she got up, determined to be gone before he woke up.

She managed a few weeks of odd recon and clean up jobs before making her way back to her New York apartment.  Long enough to convince herself that the ache she felt after she left wasn’t real, that she’d imagined that look from him.  And even if she hadn’t, it’d have disappeared by now.

She could even almost pretend that it didn’t feel like a stab in the gut when he pretended not to see her in the hall at work, and that it wasn’t because she hurt him that badly that he couldn’t even look at her.

She could pretend a lot of things, and lie to herself, and act like she didn’t care.  Until some little rookie punk told her he didn’t blame her for hanging Barton out to dry, he was damaged goods, using a weapon that had been useless for a few centuries, he was better off being put out to pasture at this point.

She couldn’t pretend the rage didn’t feel like it was searing her brain, or that his look of terror when she pushed him up against the wall with a hand to his throat wasn’t satisfying.

“Agent Barton is twice the man, let alone agent, that you’ll ever be.  Come back to me when you’ve pulled as many asses out of the fire as him, or can spot if someone is lying from the way they blink on the other side of a football field.  When you can take out three people with one arrow without looking, then you _might_ have something worth hearing to say.  Until then, shut the hell up, or next time, I’ll rip out your voice box.”

“Crazy bitch,” the man sputtered, rubbing his neck as she backed off.  “I’ll report you to Fury for that.”

“You can try that,” she told him in a reasonable tone.  “But how do you think the director will feel hearing about one of his best agents being badmouthed in the break room?  Especially by someone who hasn’t even managed to log any real time in the field yet.”

“Forget you.  You know, I’ve heard about you, the crazy Soviet.  You’re as cracked as they say.”

“Yeah, you should probably be more careful what you say around her,” Clint’s voice drawled from the doorway.  “She’s a little unstable, who knows when she’ll flip and decide we’re all the enemy after all.”

“Batshit crazy, both of you.”

He scuttled out the doorway, and Nat automatically gave Clint a grin, but his expression didn’t change.

“I don’t need you to defend me, Romanoff,” he told her.

“I know that.  You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t suffer fools gladly.”

He snorted, shaking his head as he turned to go.  “Whatever.  Glad you’re not dead.”

And then he was gone, and Natasha was left with an acute feeling of something broken.  He’d been angry before when she’d come back, or surprised, some sort of reaction.  Not this...nothing.

Which was for the best, really.  That was the point.  Leave so that they remembered who they were, that they were better as separate entities.  Because she couldn’t care about anyone, she wasn’t enough of a person anymore herself to allow anyone else in.

It was better this way.

Which was why she was mentally cursing at herself as she stood in front of his door with a six pack of his favorite awful beer and treats for his stupid dog.  The one who immediately barked happily and nearly knocked her over when he rammed into her legs affectionately.

“Lucky still likes me.”

“He’s senile,” Clint said, looking down at the dog with a raised eyebrow.  Lucky only looked up at him and barked, sitting down next to Nat in the hall and wagging his tail.  “Traitor.”

***

The problem with Nat was, he couldn’t help wanting to trust her, even when she proved time and again that he couldn’t.  And because he still wanted to trust her, it translated to wanting her to trust him, which she probably never would.  Not willingly anyway.

But the facts didn’t matter when she was pinned down and no one could get to her, unless someone happened to have incredibly good distance vision and unbeatable hand-eye coordination and not a lot to lose.  He took a few hits, but nothing he couldn’t handle, and Nat made it out, so it was worth it.

She called him an idiot for it, though, and demanded why he’d done it.

“Because in the last, what, six, seven years, you know the one thing that has become incredibly obvious to me?”

“You’re a masochist?”

“There’s that.  But also that I’m never going to not do that.  Not if it’s you.”

Her eyes widened and she shook her head a little before turning on her heel and walking away.

He only sighed when he found out she’d taken off again.

She’d only been gone a couple of weeks when he fucked up royally.  He’d been made on a mission and paid the price; he’d survived, but not by much.  And his hearing aids were toast.  He needed help, bad, but the even injured and bleeding, the idea of going to SHIELD and being around that many people without being able to hear made him feel twitchy, so he did the absolute last thing he should do ever.

He went to Nat’s place.

“I don’t know if you’re there or not,” he said to her speaker after pressing the buzzer.  “I don’t know if you answered so I’m just gonna talk and seriously hope I don’t bleed out on your stoop.  But I fucked up and I know you don’t want to talk to me for whatever reasons you always cook up in your head but I need you Nat, just this once, please, Tasha--”

His head whipped around when he felt a hand on his arm, and there was Nat, a concerned frown crinkling the skin between her brows, and he nearly collapsed in relief.  She turned and pulled one of his arms over her shoulders and helped him inside and up the steps to her apartment.  Someone was already inside when she banged the door open, a very male someone, who stood up from the couch quickly at the sight of them.

“Natalie--”

“Leave,” Nat said without turning her head from Clint.

“But we were going to--”

“And now we’re not,” she told him, and Clint tried to hide his satisfaction as she examined his swollen eye and various cuts and bruises.  The other man straightened and left with an affronted expression, and Nat glanced at the door as it slammed shut behind him before taking a step back from Clint and raising her hands.

_Don’t look so smug.  It wasn’t a date._

_None of my business._

_No, it’s not.  But it still wasn’t a date._ She rolled her eyes at his nod.  _He’s someone’s accountant.  What happened to your hearing aids?_

_Fell out.  Stepped on.  Gone._

_You should be at the hospital._

_I know._

He watched her chest rise with her sigh, then she shook her head, indicating for him to take his shirt off before going for her first aid kit.  She didn’t say much as she patched him up, but anytime she did speak, she made sure he could see her face, even if it meant physically turning his.  She didn’t give him any shit for showing up at her place, although there was some for getting into trouble without her.  When she was done, she stood in front of him and studied him for a minute, the frown reappearing, then raised one hand to his cheek.  He leaned into the touch, lifting a hand to her waist to draw her closer before resting his forehead against hers.

Because no matter what they could do for him at the hospital, they couldn’t give him this, the bizarre feeling of safety and security he felt with her despite having a thousand reasons not to.

They stayed like that a minute before she stepped away and took his hand, leading him to her room and pushing him down on the bed.  She pulled the covers over him, and he caught her hand when she leaned down to kiss his forehead.

“Please stay?”

She stared at him a moment, her expression a mix of surprise and uncertainty, before she nodded, crawling onto the bed next to him.  She curled herself against his side, her fingers still twined with his.

When he woke up to an empty bed, he shook his head and called himself every kind of idiot as he rose painfully.  Of course she’d bug out, because that was the point, wasn’t it?  Leave whenever she thought he was getting too attached, because she wouldn’t or couldn’t return his feelings.  So it was a complete shock when he walked out of her room to see her entering her apartment with a bag of groceries.  She paused when she saw him, then slowly put the bag down on the counter before turning to face him and waving a little.  He lifted a hand in a half-hearted attempt to return the gesture, every gear in his brain locking up.

She licked her lips uncertainly, then picked up a little box he hadn’t noticed and stepped toward him to hand it over.  He lifted the top to find a pair of hearing aids inside, and looked up at her in question.

_Got them from SHIELD this morning_ , she signed.  _They’re not as good as your usual pair, but they’ll do for now until they have another set for you._

He nodded a little, then put them in and turned them on before looking up at her expectantly.

“Can you hear me now?” she asked with a little smirk, her voice a little tinny and mechanical, but still beautifully audible.

“Smart ass.”  He tossed the box on to her couch as she grinned and turned away, rummaging through the grocery sack.

“All I had in the house was peanut butter, and I know you get hungry after you run into fists a few times, so I picked up some eggs and bacon, it’s up to you to make them though, I’ll only burn the place down.”

“You didn’t have to do all this,” he told her, moving toward the kitchen.

“I know.”

“Then why?”

She stopped moving, looking down for a minute, then turned to him with a shrug.  “Because I’ll never not do it.  Not if it’s you.”

His mouth dropped open a little when he heard his words echoed from her lips.  He knew what he meant when he said them, and he knew she knew it too, that’s why she’d left--realization slammed through him and left him feeling winded.

She didn’t leave because she didn’t care.

She left because she did.

“Tasha,” he murmured, and she shook her head.

“Don’t...that’s not...don’t do that--”

“Too late,” he interrupted, lifting a hand to her cheek as he lowered his lips to hers.

***

She knew the look in Barton’s eye when he said he had some things to take care of, and wasn’t surprised when she showed up at his place to find him packing.

“Going somewhere?” she called up to his loft bedroom, and he peered over the railing at her before shaking his head.

“Pretty sure I locked the door.”

“Pretty sure I’m smarter than your lock,” she replied, nudging the quiver on the floor with her toe.  “You didn’t answer me.”

“I think I’ve earned a vacation,” he said, turning away again.  “And hey, I don’t even have to worry about Lucky anymore.  Simone’s off the hook.  I don’t ever have to come back if I don’t want to.”

She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jacket, nodding even though he couldn’t see her.  “You get the key from Stark?”

There was silence from above for a long moment.  “Yeah.”

“I hear he’s got a jacuzzi.  You could just vacation there.”

“I don’t think so, Nat.”

She turned when she heard him on the stairs, and he kept his eyes lowered as he dropped the gym bag next to the quiver, then swept past her toward the sofa and the bow hanging above it.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she told him, and he paused for a second before shaking his head and grabbing the bow.

“Yeah, I do,” he said, unstringing the bow and slotting it into its case.

“It wasn’t you.”

“I really wish people would stop saying that,” he muttered, still refusing to look at her as he turned and moved to drop the case in the growing pile, but she reached for his arm to keep him from moving past her.

“Then maybe you could try listening.”

“You don’t get it,” he said, finally looking at her, and she hurt for him at the haunted look in his eyes.  “It _was_ me, it was all me, I made the choices, I took the shots, I...I hurt you.  I remember all of it, I remember _wanting_ to do it, knowing the best way to do everything, the only thing that was different was...different motivations.  And I don’t know about everyone else, but that’s not a good enough excuse for me.”

“It was when it was me,” she reminded him, and he looked away again, swallowing hard.

“That’s different.”

“How?”  He didn’t answer, and she shook her head.  “Hey, that’s how it works.  You believe in me, I believe in you, to hell with how things seem, right?”

“Til the next time you leave, right?” he asked, raising his eyes to hers, and it was her turn to look away.  “What does it matter to you?  It’s only a matter of time before you take off again.”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“Because there’s a difference between running from something and just running,” she snapped, lifting her gaze defiantly.  “And I’m not going to let you do that, not when you didn’t do anything wrong.  You’re one of the good guys, Barton.”

He snorted, shaking his head.  "You were the one who said there are no good guys or bad guys, that everyone who believes in something thinks they're right, that it's just a matter of perspective."

“I was wrong,” she said, shrugging again, and he turned away with an irritated huff.  “You’re a good person, Clint, and no sociopathic demigod can convince me otherwise.  No one blames you.”

“I do!” he shouted, whipping around to face her and pointing at his chest.  “Nat, I could have killed you!”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snorted.  His mouth dropped open as he stared at her, and she rolled her eyes.  “Oh come on, it’s not like you were all that successful when you were actually supposed to, and this time I saw you coming.”

“You know, someone told me that turning everything into a joke was an unhealthy defensive maneuver,” he said slowly.

“Sounds like they just didn’t have a good enough sense of humor,” she replied, and he let out a huff that was a ghost of a laugh as he raised an eyebrow.  There was a silent beat, then she told him, “You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’m used to it.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”  He eyed her a moment, looking uncertain.  “Come on, let’s go see how obnoxious this tower of Stark’s is.  Give it a couple of days.  If you still want to leave then, I won’t stop you.”

It took a little more prodding to finally get him to agree, but within an hour they were entering the large building.  Steve was already there, and looked relieved when they entered--probably so he wouldn’t have to deal with Tony on his own anymore.

That night, after Clint wore himself out with her between the sheets, she stayed up with a book, waiting for the inevitable.  When he woke up sweating and screaming, she wrapped herself around him, kissing his forehead as he clutched at her, whispering that he was okay, that he was safe, just like he’d done for her countless times.

“Why did you come back?” he asked her later, his arm around her as the both laid boneless against the pillows.  There wasn’t any judgement, just genuine curiosity--she’d taken off again, but had only been gone a couple of days before Coulson called her.

“Coulson said you’d been compromised.”  She turned her head a little, kissing his shoulder in a sudden need to reassure herself he was there, he was him, he was okay, and his arm tightened around her.

“That’s all it took?”

“That’s all it ever takes.”  His hand reached under her chin to lift her face, and she looked up into his eyes to see everything they never said but both knew, all the reasons she always ran away and all the reasons she always came back.

“Me too,” he told her, leaning down to kiss her.


End file.
